I sat down at a local cafe and ordered a caramel latte. As I was waiting I surveyed the cafe and noticed, much to my surprise, a small bird stuck behind the glass door. At one point a fellow bird stood on the outside of the cafe as if to ask its kin what it was doing.

I waited until the waitress came over and drew her attention to the small trapped wren. She pushed the door open, but the bird still seemed to think it could fly through the transparent glass. The waitress sheepishly admitted that she was a little scared of birds. I walked over and scooped up the wren in my hands and brought it up to the window and it flew out of my hand.

It was such a lovely unexpected moment.

There’s something quietly confronting about decluttering, about pouring over all the artifacts of your life. About remembering the person you were, the person you wanted to be, the dreams you aspire towards and the ones you gave away. The self-help books that didn’t help. The things that seemed nice but ultimately just “weren’t you.” The cards and letters from friends old and new. The way specific hobbies marked stages in your development – the time you wanted to be a rockstar, then when you wanted to be a writer, then that phase where you were into gardening and herbal remedies.

As I write this I’m struck by the realisation that one of the self-help books on my shelf holds a memory. The book is titled “I Could Do Anything If Only I Knew What It Was.” As I flick through the book just now it stops at chapter four, the chapter is called ‘The Sure Thing.’ There’s a makeshift bookmark there. It is half of a set of photographs of a one time lover and myself, taken by one of those dorky machines in a games arcade. I cut it in half and posted one half to my friend after I returned from holiday. It’s the kind of memento I never know whether to keep or part with. It is imbued with memories both happy and sad. For about a week I was happier than I had ever been in my entire life. And to think that was the book I took with me to read on the plane while on holiday… what does that say about me?

But then it was the fall out from that led me to start painting. And the paintings are something else to contend with while cleaning up. Which ones do you keep? Which ones do you dispose of? Which ones can be salvaged? I usually cut the offending canvases off the canvas boards and keep them in their less bulky form for possible use in future works and collages. I want to treat everything I do as special, but surely some works are more successful than others… and surely treating them all as special really discounts the ones that are. But frequently people see things in my work that I can’t or don’t see. They love things I hate and vice versa.

I feel like I need to just ride out what I’m feeling right now and see where I end up, and what I end up with…

True believers tend to only see things that they think support their arguments and for conspiracy theorists everything (no matter how apparently irrelevant or mundane) is imbued with great significance.

And it’s difficult not to see some religionists in these dimensions. For certain factions whenever something bad or ominous happens it’s because you’re not following God’s divine plan (whatever that is).

The Catch The Fire Ministries website concluded that the dire floods experienced in Queensland, Australia, were… erm…. Well read for yourself, Daniel Nalliah writes:

Then at once I was reminded of Kevin Rudd speaking against Israel in Israel on 14th December 2010. It is very interesting that Kevin Rudd is from QLD. Is God trying to get our attention? Yes, I believe so.

[...]

Australia’s Rudd urged Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and open all its nuclear facilities to UN inspectors.

Apparently God doesn’t want the United Nations to know what Israel’s doing with Nuclear power (and arms?)… who knew, right?! And pity any one known to anybody who makes suggestions to contrary.

Curiously – if these evangelical groups are to believed – words irritate God much more than actions. Kevin Rudd’s supposed mistake was talking about Israel. Similarly what really bothers God is not that homosexuals exist, or that they serve in the US military, but rather that people are talking about them! Times were so much easier and less doomsday-esque back when people weren’t allowed to ask or tell.

And how does God show his displeasure at this? By knocking birds out of the sky, apparently.

A comment on the SFGate.com coverage of Cindy Jacobs’ comments by MattySF is both amusing and telling of the kind of ‘leaps’ (of faith and logic) sometimes taken.

This woman is totally on to something. I looked it up and gay marriage was legalized in Canada on July 20th, 2005. Just a month later, Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. I mean, you can’t dispute that because, ya know, there are um…the French Canadians….and uhhh, Louisiana has a lot of French culture in it. Oh, and the French LOVE THE GAYS! So uhhh, yeah. In summation – gay marriage leads to hurricanes which is all because the French love the gays. It’s the lord speaking to us, people!!

Happy Sunday!

In The Artist’s Way Julia Cameron writes:

Most of the time when we are blocked in an area of our life, it is because we feel safer that way. We may not be happy, but at least we know what we are – unhappy. Much fear of our own creativity is the fear of the unknown.

I was angry. I didn’t even know why I was angry, all I knew was that the mention of your name caused my blood to boil. I was angry when you acknowledged me and I was angry when you ignored me. I was angry when I found myself unwittingly using one of your personal cliches.

I tried to rationalise my anger, I tried to look for some possible explanation to justify the way I felt… and I couldn’t. I tried to convince myself that I was just being unfair at best, or plain crazy at worst. But even that didn’t change the way I felt. Nothing did, infact. But then I found my copy of The Artist’s Way.

Certain phrases just leapt out at me, most notably ‘blocked artists.’ Cameron insists that blocked artists are never happy to see their friends become recovering artists. Fully functioning artists are a threat to them, suddenly it is hard to hold onto the excuses they hold dear, the ones that keep them blocked. And we tend to stay blocked because it feels ‘safer that way.’

But I wasn’t just a blocked artist, I was a blocked human being. The simple truth was that you had managed to become unstuck, unblocked. You plucked up the courage to be honest in ways I don’t think I’d ever be able to and your entire world had been transformed as a result. Everything seemed so much better, you were liberated, you were happy and you were in love. I started to realise I was at the periphery of your world. I was a very small part of your very full exciting life, and conversely you were a huge part of my very limited experience.

So I take Julia Cameron’s advice once more. She writes:

Anger is meant to be acted upon. It is not meant to be acted out. Anger points the direction. We are meant to use anger as fuel to take the actions we need to move where our anger points us. With a little thought, we can usually translate the message that our anger is sending us.

I suspend my disbelief for a moment. I make a list of all the things I’d have to do to be somewhere similar to where you are. The list terrifies me – of course it does, why else would I be so stridently stuck in the proverbial mud? But at least now I understand. At least now I no longer feel angry.

At some point I suppose I’m going to have to do all those things on that list. Ugh. Can you imagine?!

I can’t stop listening to Kate Bush’s Jig Of Life.

“This moment in time,”
(She said.)
It doesn’t belong to you,”
(She said,)
It belongs to me,

“And to your little boy and to your little girl,
And the one hand clapping:
Where on your palm is my little line,
When you’re written in mine
As an old memory?
Ooh, na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-

“Never, never say goodbye
To my part of your life.
Oh no, no, no, no, no!
Never, never, never!
Never, never let me go!”

What happens when somebody does say goodbye to your part of their life? Well that, as they say, is the end of that. I don’t want to give you up but you’ve made other plans. More sensible, workable plans, admittedly. Perhaps I was just a moment, barely a mark on your sense of palmistry.

Right now I’m annoyed when you talk to me and I’m annoyed when you ignore me. Mostly, I suppose, I’m just annoyed that you picked him.

Maybe I should take that moment in time and put it over there as you have. Perhaps we should all move on and away.

Fixed. Immutable. There are certain things that just are. Your eyes are a certain colour. My eyes are brown. They just are. I know some people’s eyes change colour in different lighting situations, mine do not. They are fixed, I suppose. Perhaps you don’t like my eye colour. There’s not a great deal I can do about it. Perhaps I could wear cosmetic contacts. But that doesn’t change the fact that my eyes are brown.

In addition to ‘fixed’ and ‘immutable’ I might also use the term ‘inescapable.’ No amount of wishing for different coloured eyes will help. No chants, no prayers, no invoking of The Secret (TM) will do it. So I guess I am somewhat resigned to the fact that I have brown eyes.

I rather like my eyes, but perhaps you do not. Perhaps, for you, it’s what Dr. Phil might call “a deal breaker.”

Perhaps in an effort to please you I do get cosmetic contact lenses. But it’s not really a change so much as diversion, a special effect… it has no substance, no power.

Now, perhaps, is the time to chime in with the usual spiel about having people ‘like you for who you are’ and mutterings regarding unconditional love. Perhaps for reasons that are hard to justify I want desperately to make you happy, to make you proud, to somehow garner your love, your affection and perhaps even your respect. Perhaps I can’t change myself, perhaps I can’t be the person I suspect you really want, but I’ll bend and distort and use mood lighting to at least give the illusion.

It feels awful, actually. It feels like hell. It makes me profoundly unhappy. But few things terrify me as much as the prospect of this particular veil being lifted. I don’t think I’ll survive what might come out of it. The conflict, the rejection. So here I am in a kind of holding cell, a personal purgatory. I can’t be who you want and I cannot be myself. I fail on all accounts. I don’t think I can make this right, I don’t think I can make this work.

And I am so angry that I find myself in this position. I am so resentful that this is even an issue at all. It just seems so unfair and I look towards people whose support and love I need and feel as though I can’t even begin to trust them. I don’t think anybody should have to go through this. I don’t understand why I should have to go through it. And like I’ve said, I am so angry. But what to do with that anger, where to direct it? At some deity for creating me this way? At the people around me? Somehow it doesn’t feel right to be so angry, so I swallow hard. Besides it’s not their fault I’m not what they wanted. I should be something else. Something better. Something much more impressive. In short, someone else.

I feel so helpless. I feel so overwhelmed. I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what I can do. And I’m hurting…

I made the mistake of waking up to television news earlier in the week. Ordinarily I dip in and out of the news stories as the television plays in the background. But there seemed to be one story dominating that morning, a push to legalise gay marriage in Australia… or at least broach the subject in a parliamentary setting.

Only… as the day progressed the outcome looked very bleak indeed. It seemed the subject of ‘gay marriage’ was just a window dressing to more widely held misgivings about gay people. Newspapers carried opinion pieces on how gay parents would never be a suitable parallel to heterosexual parents. Politicians ducked and weaved, doing the slippery slide for which I suppose they’re celebrated, avoiding questions, avoiding declarations. Gay people aren’t as important as ‘community consensus’ and none of them seemed too sure what that was exactly. I was particularly disillusioned with a transcript of a doorstep interview with Malcolm Turnbull which seemed to suggest there was no benefit in doing anything until everyone within the community was on board with the idea.

More closely to home a tiny little opinion poll at the bottom of the website for Federal Member for Gilmore Joanna Gash actually suggested this region was surprisingly liberally minded. This frankly took me a little by surprise. But home town pride was short lived as a local church leaped into action. They were apparently horrified that the media would have a field day with the results. They sent out an instruction to their entire congregation to remedy the survey results. Apparently it was part of their ‘righteous mission.’

Despondent, I sent a message to a friend. He expressed something I was reluctant to think – let alone say. “Religion is stupid,” he explained. “I’m sorry but it is.” I smiled a little reading it. The truth was despite not being a religious person myself, despite not having a religious affiliation, I had always been a big proponent of religion. I saw some of my friends taking part in religious practice and could see it as a largely positive influence in their lives. I wanted them to have that. In truth I was secretly fascinated by religion. I clung to the edges of the subject and explored different traditions and theological ideas, if at a distance.

But I was feeling increasingly uneasy by it all. Religion seemed too abstract, too malleable. Like reading a painting it was all too subjective. God can be – and is – anything you want him (her? it?) to be. The word of God is whatever text you want it to be, whatever translation you want it to be. It is as literal or as allegorical as you choose. It is a product of the time in which it was produced or a volume of timeless unwavering universal wisdom. And, of course, and perhaps most sobering, your unique point of view is (if you’ll forgive the pun) ‘gospel’ and all those other wretches are just terribly mistaken…

Of course there are others who have put it more succinctly and eloquently than I ever could. I think particularly of former Archbishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway, who was himself largely disenchanted with the way homosexuality was treated within his own tradition. In a talk titled ‘Shaking the Kaleidoscope’ he explains:

There isn’t a real divine broadcaster, there isn’t a real God; religion is a work of the human imagination. It is a work of art, like a great opera, like a great fiction system. So all this revelation that we’ve been receiving, all this talk that we’ve been doing, is us talking to ourselves. But that does not reduce its meaning or value, it’s good talk, it’s powerful talk, it’s meaningful talk, it’s us telling ourselves stories, offering ourselves narrative to try and explain the mystery of our own existence.

I think too of authors of fiction who tell me emphatically that the way to get to ‘truth’ is through fiction. At face value this statement seems silly and flawed. I imagine they mean that one can explore themes and issues through the course of their stories. So in this way Harry Potter might be get you to truths about friendship and loyalty and courage even though Mr. Potter himself never existed. But I worry this kind of ‘truth telling’ could work equally well in promoting propaganda. So how do we evaluate the ‘meaningful talk’ of religion, and how and when do we use it?

And yes, frankly, who is using it…?

At the present time (certainly in this country) we seem to have one section of the population telling another section of the population what they can and cannot do. The fact that these orders are coming not from law enforcement agencies but rather religious institutions is of particular concern. Remember: religion is opt-in. The term ‘coercive religion’ is used to describe religions that exert pressure on their congregation, but you might equally use the more informal term ‘cult.’ It is also bothersome that certain religions want to dictate how non-followers live their lives. Can you imagine the outrage if the Catholic Church started ordering Islamic people around? Perhaps it is time to defend the rights of secular non-religionists with the same rigor that religionists protect their own rights.

Happy Sunday!

I’ve always considered myself a romantic, perhaps a hopeless romantic. Long before I hit puberty my mind was full of romantic gestures from pop culture and, of course, pop music. Perhaps the prolific songwriter Diane Warren (who has penned songs for everyone from Celine Dion to Milli Vanilli and Michael Bolton and even Aerosmith) is the biggest culprit. These songs follow familiar motifs surrounding romance, they’re grandiose declarations of love or the lack of love or the disintegration of romantic relationships. When it’s good it’s really good and when it’s bad it’s horrific. When you’re in love your life has meaning, and when you’re not it is at best empty or at worst unbearable.

Though lately that fog has lifted, those illusions have been slowly disassembled and I find myself thinking about another song entirely. One by Hadaway actually.

What is love?
Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me no more

Perhaps I should backtrack a little. My own personal relationship history (as fragmented as it is) has made me realise that relationships take work, that passions can be shortlived and that people can be fickle. Perhaps at its core it is like those Diane Warren ballads – intense and dramatic – but there is more mundane territory to be explored and mapped too.

Even more than that though as someone who religiously sits somewhere between being agnostic and atheistic I began to wonder if my belief in love wasn’t a tad superstituous, perhaps a tad silly. Perhaps love doesn’t exist as a force, perhaps it’s merely a human construct that can be explained through an understanding of psychology, sociology and biology. I mean many historical references seemed to explain marriage in terms of property (either in the sense that the woman was the property of the man, or some sort of asset merger took place through the union). Even the idea that we should like our partner, that they should be some sort of ‘soul mate’, is a relatively new invention – James Alison suggests as recent as the 17th century.

I look at those around me and notice that many of them have abandoned the language of love in favour of talking in terms of ‘needs.’ And I don’t just mean in terms of sexual gratification, though that is certainly one of them. In some ways for some people (at times myself included) flirting becomes a valuable exercise in and of itself. It can bolster one’s ego without having to lead anywhere particular. Endorphins and self-esteem can be a potent heady mix.

I used to think this was a terrible, deeply cynical way of looking at things, but perhaps it is just pragmatic.

But then there are people for whom I have a very deep affection, and that affection feels very genuine. Perhaps it is just a conditioned response to a specific stimuli (specific person) but I like to imagine it is something more. Mostly though I feel none the wiser despite all the time I spent pontificating on this and other things. I guess what was most difficult to tangle with was the quiet realisation that I probably wouldn’t have the kind of epic romance I imagined as a pre-pubescent kid. Whatever it is and is not, it will be different to the fanfare inside my head. Sometimes it’s just hard to let go of your personal illusions.

So tell me… what is love?

In some ways I’ll tell you anything you want to know, but in others I’m quite guarded. I feel like there were compelling reasons to be so guarded growing up but I just know now that I can’t shake them off completely. There’s a part of me that still wonders all the time if I’m “allowed” to do certain things, if I’m “allowed” to want the things I want, if I’m “allowed” to be the person I am. It’s funny in some ways because my background wasn’t particularly religious but the parts that were I absorbed really quickly and unthinkingly – to the extent that I used to think if something bad happened (say, bullying for example) it may have meant I had done something wrong and God was punishing me. And in an odd way a part of me still thinks this way long after I stopped believing in a God. Like when I have to be somewhere and my car doesn’t start I’ll automatically slip back into a “What did I do THIS TIME?!” kind of thinking.

I actually have a great interest in religion despite not being a believer. I wholeheartedly believe everyone should have the right to choose whatever resonates with them. But by the same token I am acutely aware of how damaging my personal experiences have been to me, how religious ideas informed a particular world view that left me in turmoil for years. I still struggle to understand a theology of sin that suggests your only redeeming feature is your capacity to be loved by a supernatural being. I don’t know how a person can feel good about themselves within those parameters. Isn’t that just the worst kind of codependency?

I want to feel good about myself. I want to be proud of myself. I want to be able to operate as a human being without feeling guilty. There’s a lot to unlearn. There’s a lot to shake off. I hope I’ll get there one day.

“Stay up all night to feed your fire
My day’s a dream with you on my mind
I wake up tight full of desire
And you are the one who can unwind
My weather’s always a surprise
Don’t think you’ll ever come prepared
But love’s the lighthouse in my life
If you get scared…”
- Sophie B. Hawkins, Mysteries We Understand

When I woke up this morning I had another Sophie B. Hawkins song (Don’t Stop Swaying) stuck in my head so I thought I’d listen to the album. Listening to it I was so struck by how much those lyrics reproduced above speak to my situation. I slept solidly last night mostly due to the fact that I hadn’t slept at all the night before that. I laid in bed all night but I didn’t close my eyes. I was driven by a fire of my own, a compulsion, a desire. A confused desire perhaps. I wanted to feel like I mattered to someone – anyone – and was determined to do whatever was required to feel like I was important to at least one human being.

The truth is I am deeply conflicted. I have all these ideas about romantic love and sex that seem to circle around each other but which don’t always seem to coincide. I want to be loved and I want to be loved. I laugh to myself at that sentence because it seems contrived but I hope the emphasis is understood. I guess in a large part this is what this is about – a conflict between romantic aspirations and raging hormones and sexual desires. I want it all and I want it now. Though if I’m being honest I don’t think I can have it all. Part of me wants to settle to have at least some of that. But what parts do you pursue and which do you forget?

I was propositioned recently by an enthusiastic charming individual. And honestly I was deeply flattered (perhaps in the most literal sense of that word), and a little curious, but I know from my own relationship history (as limited as it is) that sex without love leaves me feeling cold. A part of me – the desperate delusional part that dreams of running away with the circus long after it has left town – wondered though if it might be the beginning of something else, something better. And to this person’s credit they were very frank and honest about the realities of the situation and their intentions. It helped bring clarity, and completely destroyed the lofty imaginings taking place inside my head. I guess if I’m being completely honest I always hope someone will come and rescue me from my life and myself. Though clearly we live in a world that is markedly different to the one I imagine.

And it’s funny that I should be listening to Sophie B. Hawkins this morning because in a sense I feel like I’ve come full circle. Because this album Tongues and Tails is more or less a tribute to all that desire, to all manner of desires really, often conflicting ones. It’s murky and messy, and, maybe, when it works, wonderful. I guess what Sophie has that I don’t is a faith in forces – natural, romantic, spiritual. An expectation that things will work out and that things are worth working towards.